


Flag Bearer

by dog_spartacus



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Current Events, E/O reunion, F/M, Gen, Law & Order: Organized Crime, Police Brutality, Police Reform, Season 22
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:33:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24864601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dog_spartacus/pseuds/dog_spartacus
Summary: Defying all logic, Elliot Stabler is back on the force. And Olivia can't believe the person he's become. (Speculative S22 semi-political reunion fic - rating for language)
Relationships: Olivia Benson & Elliot Stabler
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	Flag Bearer

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: Set in a speculative September 2020, assuming 'Law & Order: Organized Crime' is happening as originally announced (i.e., early Season 22)  
> Spoilers and references: No spoilers, but direct references to 12x24, "Smoked" and 15x1, "Surrender Benson"
> 
> A/N: Let's face it, guys. I'm sure we've all read the articles talking about the inherent problems in romanticizing the police in movies and TV, so the return of [notoriously violent] Elliot Stabler in 'Organized Crime' this fall is probably the worst-timed, most tone-deaf character return that could ever happen. But it's happening. (And the fangirl in me is definitely still squee-ing about it, so please don't think I'm opposed to it—but you have to admit that the timing and optics are really, really bad. Especially for a franchise with a "ripped from the headlines" reputation.)
> 
> Anyway, I've wanted to write a speculative S22/OC reunion fic for a while, but since the 'Defund the Police' movement started gaining national attention and traction, I've had trouble reconciling how such a problematic figure as Elliot Stabler would ever have a home in the reimagined NYPD. I suddenly landed on this tonight, and it all sort of came out in one burst. I hope it makes sense. Would love comments/feedback, especially related to plausibility.
> 
> Disclaimer: These characters are _so_ not mine.

"Flag Bearer"

He's seen her twice in the three months that he's been back, both times on a virtual conference call with the Chief of D's. Not exactly an environment for catching up. He imagines she must have seen him, too, even if he was just a little square off to the side of her screen. He'd seen her, after all. Hadn't been able to take his eyes off her. But if she saw him, she never acknowledged it in any way. Never called him or anything. He'd sort of thought she might.

Reforms have been coming down from the Commissioner ever since Elliot had been dragged out of retirement. (He describes it to people that way, as if he hadn't had a choice, but the truth is that when the department asked for help, he raised his hand as a volunteer; you can't drag what you can't grab ahold of.) The thin-blue-outlined landscape of New York City has already changed significantly since he left, but more changes are coming. It will take time to dismantle and reassemble the force the way they want, and in the meantime, the chiefs and their deputies have been actively working on retraining and restructuring and reallocating staff—all in the midst of a pandemic. It's been a wild three months.

The temporary restructuring has led to administrative changes, and it means that while Elliot's new team is based in Brooklyn, he's been reporting to a C.O. in Manhattan. Everything is fucked these days. And today, he had actually been called to the old house itself to pick up a load of supplies and new manuals for his people.

He arrived after hours, after his team had wrapped their work for the day, with the vague hope of avoiding her—or at least avoiding a scene in front of a busy squadroom. Fin was still in the bullpen when Elliot walked in, and their reunion had been perfunctory but polite. Fin made some comment about the new changes and how many dinosaurs he'd heard of reemerging; Elliot responded with the joke about never getting a day off in retirement. They had only just touched on the protests, with Elliot awkwardly conveying his support to Fin, when Olivia emerged from her office.

"I was wondering how long it would be before you finally showed up here," she'd said from her doorway.

As soon as she spoke, both Elliot and Fin knew their conversation was over, so once Elliot had turned to face her, he could really pursue no other course of action but to meet her at her doorway and ultimately follow her into her office. He credits the department's recent deescalation seminars for why she hadn't shot him on sight.

They've been in there for twenty minutes or more, all the obligatory pleasantries out of the way without any vitriol so far, when the conversation shifts to the restructuring and his unexpected return to duty. As Olivia moves around the office, Elliot watches her from his seat on her couch, and he can't help thinking about all the secrets and skeletons this little room holds. He almost wonders how she can bear it.

"You ever think about how many times we skated on pretty serious shit?"

"Don't," she warns him.

"And we were proud of ourselves for it."

"Speak for yourself."

"I am. I take full responsibility for my past. What about you?"

"I know what I've done. But I'll never say I was proud of it."

"Denial is not the moral high ground here, Liv."

Her scoffing laugh is abrupt and unchecked. "Like you would know anything about that."

"Oh! Still holier-than-thou, I see."

"No—just the idea of you lecturing _anyone_ on cop morality is an outright joke."

He stares at her for a long time before offering his dogmatic assertion: "The first step in solving a problem is admitting that you have one."

She laughs dismissively again and turns away from him.

"My anger was a problem," he concedes, "but it wasn't _the_ problem. What I had to face—what I think we all have to face—is that I felt good when I got the results I wanted. I didn't like being angry, I didn't _like_ slamming a perp against a wall—"

"—Coulda fooled me," she huffs.

His jaw tenses and he glares at her, stopped dead in making his point. His voice doesn't carry the same hard edge, however, when he tells her, "I didn't." There's a palpable shift in the air when she glances back over at him. "What I liked was the confessions I got. Or the one little detail that would crack a case. Or, when the courts failed us… I liked knowing that the guilty still got punished."

She gasps in response, eyes closed. She recovers as he continues, and she watches him intently.

"It's not right. It's not how the system works—I know that. But if I sit here and pretend that I wasn't proud—at the time—of what we did, and especially of what we _got away_ with, then the cycle just continues. That denial… would prevent me from confronting how problematic our behavior really was. It's not enough just to regret things we did. 'It was wrong, and I'm not proud of it' is every cop's bullshit apology, and it lets them move forward with the same dangerous behavior and revisionist attitude—because as long as they say they're sorry, they can do any fucking thing they want."

Her eyes widen slightly, and they just stare at one another.

"Tell me I'm wrong," he challenges her, sitting back against the stiff blue sofa, stretching his arms along the back.

She shakes her head vaguely. "I just don't know when the poster boy for police brutality became the flag-bearer of police reform."

He understands her skepticism, but he owes her the honest truth. After all these years, it's the very least that he owes her. "When I killed Jenna Fox," he says boldly.

The air shifts again, becomes ice cold and solid, and he sees something flash through her eyes before she speaks. "IAB said it was a good shoot," she says tightly, and the unspoken indictment against him is clear: _You didn't have to leave._

This time it's he who laughs dismissively. "Right," he says quietly. He's not the same man he was ten years earlier, not afraid of the hard emotions, not scared to admit when he's wrong, not shirking blame or unwilling to see his own faults. He stays motionless on the sofa, arms still outstretched and body wide open.

"Elliot, she had a gun. She had already shot three people and was _going_ to shoot again—"

"Then why wasn't I proud of myself for stopping her?"

"Well, she was a kid. And she was basically a vict—"

"Doesn't matter. In this line of work, we shouldn't have to rationalize our actions. We shouldn't _get_ to."

"What are you saying?" she murmurs.

He leans forward. "There's a double standard in policing. Hell, there are thousands of 'em—you know it, I know it, the public knows it. But this is what I mean: If the roles had been reversed, if it had been Skinner with the gun, opening fire on the precinct, with Jenna left in harm's way, no one would have thought twice about taking him down. And if I'd been the one to do it, you better believe I'da been proud of it." He pauses, squints, shakes his head. "But why? Isn't a life a life?"

"But Skinner was—"

"No! No rationalizing! The actions taken would have been identical—except maybe someone would've put Skinner down before he even shot Sister Peg—but it's the aftermath that's different." He takes a steadying breath and reminds himself that he owes her this. "I spent a long time in counseling after Jenna. A long time. I felt guilty, you know? I couldn't get over killing a kid. And it had cost me everything I had—my job, my marriage, my family… my partner."

He glances up at her, and she's just watching him with a vaguely haunted expression.

"Something that my, uh, therapist had me do was reimagine the shooting with different variables. You know, would I have done anything differently _if_ …? And, for the most part, the answer was no, I would have done the same thing, time and time again." He rubs his palms together slowly, remembering a confession he had made to his therapist about the fear he had felt for his partner's life. "And I know that's why IAB cleared me—because, _procedurally_ , it was fine. But when I talked out Greer or Ronson or _Skinner_ as the shooter… I _felt_ different. I felt… justified. Vindicated. Absolved. I felt like a fuckin' _hero_."

He glances at her again, and this time he stares her down until she sinks onto the edge of her desk, still watching him closely.

"Why the hell would I congratulate myself for one shooting and, under identical circumstances, beat myself up about the other?" He gazes at her. "It's wrong. _I_ was wrong. For years. Skinner might have been a low-life—and we know he killed Jenna's mom—but where do I get off depriving him of his constitutional right to a fair trial? If I felt guilty about Jenna, I should've felt guilty in every scenario. It's not a cop's job to pass judgment. It's not even our _right_. But we do it—over and over and over. And we use that judgment to rationalize otherwise indefensible behavior." His lip twitches, and his eyes are hot with memories and regrets. "'He's a rapist'… 'she killed her kids'… 'this guy's a pedophile'… How many times did we say those things to ourselves and feel _good_ about whatever we'd done? How many times did we convince people—ourselves, our captain, our colleagues, our own victims—that we had done _nothing wrong_?" He sits back and sighs, rubbing his temples. "There _is_ a disease in the NYPD, Liv, and we were part of it. What the hell were we thinking?"

The office is deathly quiet. After a moment, the faint ticking of a distant clock becomes audible, but while there is still activity in the bullpen, none of its noise penetrates the thick air of the office now.

"Before we talk about an abuse of police power, we have to understand what leads to it. It's the pride, the vigilante mentality, the hero complex—the belief among cops that they have the power to differentiate right from wrong. And _that's_ the culture that needs to change. But we can't change it if we refuse to own it." He levels his gaze at her, accusingly, and leans forward. "Okay, Liv, you never hit a perp. Good for you." He knows it's a lie, but he also knows that she never equated her own actions with his. "You never walked the fine moral line unless I led the way, never agonized about what to tell Cragen or IAB after something went sideways, never felt relieved when we got off with a warning…? Well good for you, Captain. But you can't pretend you didn't just try to qualify the lives of Jenna Fox and Eddie Skinner." He sits back again. "If anything is ever going to change, we've got to admit that none of us are blameless."

Olivia nods in thought, lips slightly pursed. She scans the bullpen through the windows just over his head, glances to her office door, then looks down as she shuffles her feet beneath her. "I was—" she pauses, clears her throat, takes a small breath, "—abducted… a few years ago… by a serial rapist, a sadist—"

"I heard about that," he mumbles, leaning forward, brow furrowing in concern.

"Yeah. Well, after a few days—of straight hell—I finally got the better of him. Overpowered him, had him cuffed. I was… I was free."

Elliot's entire body goes cold because he remembers Olivia's press conference, and he had always assumed she was coerced into making the statement.

"But I thought about what you would do—"

"No—"

"And I beat him. Over… and over. With an iron pipe."

"Jesus."

"While he was handcuffed."

"Olivia—"

"I thought I'd killed him." She pauses, looks at him. "I _wanted_ to kill him."

His blood is boiling now, with latent residual anger and the possessiveness he had always felt towards her.

"So don't think I ever mistake myself for a saint."

"That's not what I meant, Liv," he insists, rising to his feet.

"Don't defend me here," she counters, standing up from the edge of her desk. "Don't excuse what I did. Because isn't that your point? Isn't that your whole goddamn point? That we don't get to play by different rules just because we think we have authority?" She takes a small step closer to him, watches the old familiar anger washing over his age-weathered features—must know exactly what ignited it. "This thing, Elliot, this thing between us… we've gotta get over it. Because you're right. You made your point. There is an unhealthy culture of righteous pride running rampant in the NYPD. And we don't get to moralize or qualify or rationalize our actions. Not anymore."

She glares at him, and he glares back.

"When I beat William Lewis, I wasn't fighting for my life. He was incapacitated, and there is no excuse for what I did. And it felt _great_. But it shouldn't have."

Elliot's hands clench tightly at his sides.

"I was never held accountable, but I should have been—"

"Liv—"

"Hear me out. To get to the place where you are now—this weird, enlightened Elliot who denounces injustice faster than an armchair activist—you had to confront killing Jenna Fox." She raises her eyebrows to see if he follows and agrees, and she gets no objection. "I think I have to confront beating William Lewis. Or maybe now _I_ have to confront your thing, and _you_ have to confront mine."

He narrows his eyes at this, but his fists have unclenched and his heart is no longer racing.

"We were partners for a long time. I want you to be my partner through this, too. But if this is going to work, we can't make excuses for each other. You're right: A life is a life. So I can't cling to 'it was a good shoot,' or justify your guilt by calling Jenna an innocent child. And you must condemn me—and never forgive me—for beating an incapacitated man within an inch of his life."

He can't help the low growl that escapes him at the thought.

"You're right, Elliot. _Amazingly_ , you're right. But they're your rules, so don't be mad at me if you're not happy with them."

He shakes his head, sighs, crosses his arms. "Professionally, and in _theory_ , I understand… and I agree. But personally? Practically?" The blood starts going again. "Liv, when you tell me this guy tortured you for days on end—"

She reaches out immediately for his forearm, exposed by his rolled sleeves, and soothingly brushes over his taut muscles with her thumb. "I get it," she says quickly, before he can continue. "But it's early," she says tentatively, ducking her head a little to make him meet her reassuring gaze. "And change takes time. I'm in if you are."

They stand there like that in her office for a moment, her hand on his bare arm, the two of them staring at one another, her willing him to accept the challenge, and him willing her just to stay. Eventually he nods his acceptance, and she gives his arm a light squeeze before releasing him. He unfolds his arms and she pivots away from him, moving to the other side of her desk. "You really want me as a partner again?" he asks doubtfully, hoping to conceal his fragile hope with a joke.

"I've always wanted you as a partner, Elliot," she says dismissively as she closes some folders on her desk and prepares to return them to their spots in her filing drawer, "even when I didn't want to _be_ your partner."

He squints and cocks his head slightly, and she laughs at his confusion. "And you're not… mad at me?"

She pauses in putting away the last file folder and looks up at him. "Oh I'm _furious_ at you," she tells him levelly. She slots the last folder into place before closing and locking the drawer. "But that's nothing new," she adds.

"Funny," he responds drily.

She's packing up her stuff now, but she pauses to look up at him again. "I'm not kidding," she assures him.

Instantly, he's floundering. He's usually a rock, but Olivia has always had the uncanny ability to crush him with a single comment. "Well—can we… talk about it?"

She looks at him blankly. "I hope so," she says.

He stands there dumbly, awkwardly, uncertain where the conversation is going and whether he is still welcome in her office. She is very clearly packing everything up for the night—as could be expected, since it's creeping up on seven—so he hesitantly retrieves his suit jacket from the coat rack by the door, watching her warily all the while.

Once she has everything together, she rounds her desk and heads for the door. "Come on," is all she says to him.

"Where are we going?" he asks, even as he falls immediately into step behind her.

She turns back to him, and they're very close. She pauses before she speaks, staring at his chin, her mouth slightly parted as if she's already second-guessing whatever she's about to say, and huskily tells him, "You're taking me to dinner."

Her eyes immediately flit up to his, and he valiantly fights the grin that keeps tugging at his lips. "Of course I am," he whispers.

She hides her half-smile by turning away, back towards the bullpen, then she stalks away, headed for the elevators. He's been left as dust, once again the crushed stone, but he hangs in the air for only a moment before hurrying to catch up to her.

_-fin-_


End file.
